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Enquirer reporter Horstman dies suddenly at age 60

Barry M. Horstman, a veteran of nearly 40 years in newspaper reporting and a man who developed a reputation as a tough but fair investigative reporter, died Monday morning after collapsing in the Enquirer newsroom.

Horstman - also of the now-defunct Cincinnati Post - left Cincinnati several times in his career, but spent most of the last two decades as a working journalist here in his hometown.

On the morning he died, the front page story on the Cincinnati Enquirer and the lead story on the newspaper's website, Cincinnati.com, was his in-depth looking at the proposed leasing of the city of Cincinnati's parking system to a private company.

In recent years, he had broken ground on the story of the city's financially-distressed pension system, covered the ups-and-downs of the effort to build a streetcar and was the lead reporter on the newspaper's "Protect Your Vote" series, which drew national attention in the 2012 presidential election.

Horstman grew up on the city's west side, where his late father owned Glenmore Bowl in Cheviot. Growing up in a bowling alley turned him into a talented, nationally-ranked bowler.

After graduating from Western Hills High School, Horstman earned a journalism degree from the Ohio State University. While at Ohio State, he went to work at the Post, owned by Scripps-Howard. He went to Washington, D.C. to become a Scripps-Howard correspondent, working there from 1978 to 1981.

He then moved to San Diego where he was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times until he returned to Cincinnati to work for the Post in 1993. In 2005, he took a buy-out from the struggling newspaper and went to work for the Las Vegas Sun.

Just before the Post folded in Dec. 2008, Horstman returned to Cincinnati to work for the Enquirer. He is survived by his wife Sheila. Funeral arrangements are pending.

You can read the Enquirer's obituary story on Hortsman here.

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.